Did you ever think DOS was creepy looking back?

[spoone]

I grew up in the Dos era of gaming so back then I didn't think much of it as creepy as it is today. The reason why I say it is kinda creepy today is that say you wanna play a game like,Doom,Blood or Quake. You had to start your games with nothing but a black screen and the c:\ flashing. Then you got your game up and it's already supposed to be a scary game. Then when you exit the game you go back to a black screen. I know it was just because it was the only way to get your game to start back then,but in my opinion it's creepy as fuck. I feel like something is gonna come out of the blackness that is Dos.

What do you guys think?

[Trance]

....................no?

[wildweasel]

DOS was always comforting to me. Watching the messages fly by as the machine loads up all the drivers from config.sys, the custom messages I'd stick into the autoexec. There were things you could do to customize DOS that modern OSes either won't let you even touch, or you have no real need to touch anymore. Things like changing the prompt to read "HOSER>" instead of "C:\>".

[Enjay]

What wildweasel said.

A number of my DOS machines were set up to use 4DOS.COM instead of COMMAND.COM. Loads of additional options.

[wildweasel]

And in case anybody thinks I'm joking about the "custom messages" thing:

[Nash]

Yes, it creeped me out as a kid. Especially the Abort, Retry, Fail message.

That fear gave me the incentive to learn how to use the command prompt and I'm glad I did :D

[Trance]

The only DOS thing that scared me a bit was the first time I had a DOS game crash to the prompt but not reset the video mode or clear the screen beforehand, so the game picture would freeze and gray error message text would be laid over the picture. Additionally whatever music or sound was playing at the time went into a 1/30th-second loop. Rather startling for a kid who had never encountered that before. Of course I was more scared by the thought that I'd broken the computer.

Once I figured out what it was, though, it never scared me afterward.

[spoone]

Now just so everyone knows Dos never scared me. I'm just saying it's kind of a creepy way to get some of your games started especially when the games are scary.

[Rachael]

What's so scary about the computer opening a chat session with you?

That's all DOS is.

[leileilol]

ya dos is super scarey its literaly five night's at a e s t h e t i c's anything can happen and exe file's
i am 12 window's 95 is the most underated computer ever windows 95 tip's creator of spiderman carton maker

[Graf Zahl]

Not creepy but just primitive.

Before I got my first PC I already had an Atari ST with a professional looking GUI interface. Going back from that to a measly command line felt like a time leap into the stone age.

[Reactor]

Not really, I never had the impression about DOS that it's eerie or scarry in any ways. I mean...how exactly? That little blinking cursor will suddenly turn into a monster and eat me? Or...umm...I don't know...the inky black screen will suddenly open up an inter-dimensional transmitter wormhole/black hole and shit and suddenly I'd find meself in the game world?

I found it puzzling and hard to handle at first, but I caught on quickly. Heh, I remember how happy I was when I could type "Bad command or file name" in, and made the computer repeat the same line OK, it was dumb, but hell, I just barely turned 6, I thought it was awesome! Once I got used to it, DOS prompt is not that nasty at all. And later, along came Norton Commander, which made file managing and system control a helluva lot easier, not to mention copying, renaming and such. I was never really a big fan of Windows anyway, when 3.1 came out, I gave it a huge middle finger, and continued using DOS until I could use it no more for the newer games (Red Alert for instance, was impossible to finish in DOS mode, as the game crashed on the interior stages). Things were simpler in MS-DOS, with all its positive and negative meanings. And besides, in most movies - for instance, Alien - computers worked just like that: a black screen with bright letters, and occassionally, a wireframe graphics. Utilizing a computer in DOS prompt by giving verbal commands really gave you the feeling that you're one of those adult professionals, who do the same thing in the movies

I also wondered who General Failure was, and why was he reading my disks...ok, that was a bit scarry, I admit it.

[Hellser]

I'm with Wildweasel. DOS is rather comforting for me. As I grew up looking at it quite a lot. Probably why I also enjoy the Win 9x -> Win 2000 era interface (or "Classic Theme") and feel rather put down that Windows 10 doesn't support it. I've looked at it quite a lot.

[Matt]

I grew up in the Dos era of gaming so back then I didn't think much of it as creepy as it is today. The reason why I say it is kinda creepy today is that say you wanna play a game like,Doom,Blood or Quake. You had to start your games with nothing but a black screen and the c:\ flashing. Then you got your game up and it's already supposed to be a scary game. Then when you exit the game you go back to a black screen. I know it was just because it was the only way to get your game to start back then,but in my opinion it's creepy as fuck. I feel like something is gonna come out of the blackness that is Dos.

omg i'm not the only one :O :O :O

(and I personally found it creepy back then... I'm still scarred by every time a game has crashed)

(also what Nash said)

[Scripten]

I never personally found it to be creepy, per se. But it definitely evoked a particular feeling for me. Older versions of Windows (pre-XP) were the same way, though each one was different. And of course a lot of that had to do with the types of games that were developed for each OS.

I can see where people feel that command prompt OS front-ends are creepy, though. There are a number of games that use them in that way, namely Superhot, Duskers, and Pony Island (sort of), so it's not entirely surprising.